An email hit my screen at the exact perfect time. I had just been rejected for a teaching position and was feeling kind of down. The email was from a former student of mine four years ago who was applying to film school; he wanted to write scripts. He asked if I’d be so kind as to write him a letter of recommendation. “As someone who was my favorite teacher at MSU I know you would do a great job at this.“

Okay, I was hooked.

My personal yoga instructor just applauded my efforts. A jingle-jangle of bells and horns sounded as my banked hours changed colors to a now golden hue. Such is the life of a star yoga student in the virtual world of Wii.Read More

Here’s an oldie but a baddie. It’s either nine seconds of me wishing you a holly jolly Christmas, or nine seconds of your life you’ll never get back. Regardless, I feel this may be my worst attempt yet at trying to get you to check out any of my books. Click any of those books up there, if for no other reason than to make me STOP!

The house has grown quieter throughout the day. A Sunday night after the holiday hears no more loud simultaneous conversations in bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms — all of which happen, inexplicably, on floors. My daughter’s friends seem to find our floors more appealing, more to their liking than our soft, comfy furniture.

One daughter is back at school, many states away. Next fall, the other will follow her sister West, just not as far. A loud, roaring quiet echoes through the emptying nest. One bedroom is now closed, vents shut, conserving the household heat. Soon we’ll have, what, three guest rooms. Come visit us; bring your friends, plenty of floor space.

Our dogs sense the silence and sporadically bark at December phantoms. There’s nothing out there, boys, Grinches and ghosts don’t show up till the 24th.

I’m reminded by a comforting wife that Christmastime will bring her parents, other relatives, our daughter back from the western prairie and until then we still get at least one lovely teen, her boyfriend and their entourage. And thinking about it reminds me that I’ve actually bought chestnuts to roast over an open Kenmore.

For now I’ll do my best not to act like the bears (grizzly, not Chicago) and hibernate.

I look over some photos with Western Kentucky University student Brittany Greeson at the Mountain Workshops. (photo by Cassidy Johnson)

There’s a teaching job open at a nearby university. I half-considered applying for it, until I realized a couple things. One, it requires that you teach poetry. My appreciation of poetic form basically starts and ends with “There once was a man from Nantucket.”Read More

My photojournalism career has taken me through a passel of papers, but never in all my time have I had to share work space with so many dummies.

I could feel it sneaking up on me.

On days like today, too, where it’s 17 o’clock in the afternoon, the sun cashes in its chips and heads south early, as if there’s something even he or she would rather be doing than warding off the darkness. October fades to winter and we here in the North can’t do a darn thing about it.